Month: March 2006

Well… Normal services has resumed. The malepopulation of our home got back to normal last evening, while the rest came back up today. Touchwood. Thanks a ton for all your messages. Some real work has piled up in the meantime. Blog reading/writing would resume soon.

In our family, we are having a (ill) health competition right now. Cold, high fever & throat infection – currently these are the categories in which all three are competing. I am proud to say that I am leading the pack at the time of writing. 🙂

Vaiko: Yes. These are all part of the game. It has happened. Let us forget the past. If you stick to the past, no political party can forge an alliance with any other political party. So, I will tell the public, let us forget the past.

Thats very true indeed. These are all part of the game. I wouldn’t be surprised even if Congress & BJP, DMK & ADMK form an alliance one day. Whats there to be surprised? After all, they have their own worries about survival.

Going by the timing of the announcement about Sachin’s injury, his prolonged slump in form etc, I very much doubt whether Sachin is really injured. Has he been given a decent rope to avoid the Ganguly like situation? If this is true, someone someday would write a paragraph in a book and make lot of money out of it.

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As India got out for a tame 100 on the last day, some of my Indian colleagues have taken a day off or are working from home, leaving few brave men like me to face the English crowd here. It requires all your talent in fine arts to pretend that you know nothing about cricket. Wish we had kept our mouth shut in the first place.

In today’s Metro, I saw an advert of Vidal Sassoon advertising a £4.50 haircut at Central London. I haven’t heard about this shop/saloon before, but from the look & the location (Bond St.) of it, I feel that they must be one of the biggie barbers in town. Though it is a kind of introductory offer, a haircut for £4.50 sounds like a good deal, for I pay 10 quid for the same job in our good, old Chesham. Had this place been reasonably closer from where I live, I would have probably given some thoughts about availing this offer.

While on the topic, in one of the yahoogroups, where I am a member, there is an active discussion going on about the cost of haircut in various cities in India and it being an indicator of inflation. Some one said that in Chennai, it costs him 40 rupees to get a haircut in a decent saloon, whereas in Durgapur it costs only 12 rupees. Well.. Barbers are not immune to inflation. When we expect a pay hike & bonus at the end of the year, it is only natural that price rise happen everywhere. Nothing to split one’s hair over it. Btw, how much do you pay your barber for a hair cut?

I had to call up my credit card provider to ask for some details. One of the security questions was about the last payment made to the card, for which I had to consult my wife sitting nearby. The guy at the other end refused to accept my answer since he could hear someone helping me with it. This was a security question, which I am supposed to answer it on my own, he insisted and proceeded with the next question, for which I had to again take my finance minister’s help. But this time she conveyed the answer over sign language, which I conveyed to the banker appropriately. Boy, was he glad about that.

Meanwhile, in one of the banks where my wife has got her account, the first question they would ask upon called is “Is there anyone else near you who could hear you talking?”. In one way, am glad that the banks are just taking lot of extra precautions as there are new ways of fraud coming to light every day. But, it is equally important that we must draw the line somewhere so that we don’t make certain things so obvious than it would have been.

It hurts like hell to know that ‘Chumma’ Sowmya is no more. I know her only through her blog & through e-mail & comment exchanges. She was a regular blogger until about 6 mths back and one would be forgiven for thinking that her new life was keeping her away from the online world, for her words never gave any clue of the underlying pain. But it really hurts to learn something like that about her. Wish the mail from Thennavan informing the news had gone to Bulk mail folder. May her family have enough strength to get over the loss.

Million Dollar website might have inspired this lady to start this, but should it be that everything – right from the FAQs to the menus, be in the same format? Imitation might be the best form of flattery. But, I am not impressed!

Few weeks ago, I had blogged about a guy in UK who was fined for swearing in public. Now comes the news that someone was fined £50 for throwing waste into the litter bin. Look at what happened. While stepping out of the house, a guy had received 2 mails from the postman. As both of them happened to be junk mails, he put them both in the bin. Two weeks later, he had got a penalty notice from the council. His mistake? Mails are classified under domestic waste and one is not supposed to deposit domestic waste in to the litter bin in the street.

Think this country is becoming a nanny state, much faster than one could imagine. I want to meet the guy who issued the penalty notice. Want to fall at his feet for once.

Chennaites – its time to let go off your pride and succumb to reality. Till date, the revered water tankers dotting your city’s landscape has remained more or less a unique feature of Chennai. Not any more. London is bracing up for such a prospect this summer. It is not there yet. But it looks like it would soon be. Due to unprecedented drought, hosepipes have already been banned and if the water managers are to be believed, the situation might soon worsen to the state that they might have to supply water through tankers. It is quite a while since I witnessed a ‘kuzhaaiyadi sandai’.